A great variety of frozen dough products have been offered to a consumer in order to minimize the time and the effort of baking the products from "scratch" and to provide the convenience of extended storage time. Commercially available frozen dough products must be "proofed" prior to baking. "Proofing" is the time required for yeast in a dough to produce sufficient amount of carbon dioxide gas to give correct height, volume, and structure in a baked product. Generally, an end user of a frozen dough product is inconvenienced by the need to thaw and proof the product prior to baking. The time required for thawing and proofing is at least 2-4 hours.
Use of chemical leavening agents in place of yeast obviates the need for proofing, but it detracts from the texture, flavor, and structure associated with proofed dough products. An illustrative example is provided by a comparison of a biscuit or Irish soda bread (chemically leavened; unproofed) with a bread loaf, a dinner roll, or a bread stick (yeast leavened; proofed). Proofed products are lighter, less dense, less chewy, more porous, more aerated than chemically leavened unproofed products. With regard to flavor and aroma, it has been found as pad of the present invention that mere addition of a yeast flavor compound to a chemically leavened product does not attain the flavor and aroma of a proofed product.
In some processes described in the art, proofing is carried out (at least to some extent) by a manufacturer of frozen dough products, prior to freezing, so as to minimize or eliminate the need for proofing by the end user. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,847,104 and 4,966,778 to Benjamin et al. The resultant dough is termed "pre-proofed" frozen dough. A serious drawback of these processes is that they call for special expensive ingredients, e.g., flour containing more than 16% protein. Even more importantly, such processes, at best, shift the burden of proofing from the end user to the manufacturer, increasing production time and cost and, ultimately, increasing cost to consumer. A frozen dough is desirable which does not need to be proofed by either the end user prior to baking or by the manufacturer prior to freezing, yet when baked is substantially similar to a proofed product in texture, flavor, structure, and aroma.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to produce a frozen dough product which does not need to be proofed prior to baking.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a frozen dough which does not need to be proofed yet when baked is substantially similar to a proofed baked product with regard to its flavor, volume, texture, structure, and aroma.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a baked product which is chemically leavened (and thus does not require proofing) yet is substantially similar in appearance, aroma, flavor, and texture to a proofed baked product.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a process of preparing a baked product from a frozen dough wherein the process does not include thawing or proofing steps.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear as the description proceeds.